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Raspberry Pi Linux Computer Will Have Fast GPU For The Price

As reported earlier, the Raspberry Pi is a small computer intended to run Linux and is made to be portable and able to be powered by USB. The small board is based on the Broadcom BCM2835 chipset, which includes an ARM 11 CPU and a dual core VideoCore IV graphics card co processor. The Raspberry Pi further includes connections for HDMI, component output, and USB ports. The higher tier $35 model will further feature an Ethernet jack and twice the RAM (512 MB).

The Raspberry Pi will soon be available for sale and if the company behind the device- The Raspberry Pi Foundation- is to be believed, the GPU in the little Linux computer will pack quite a punch for its size (and cost). In a recent Digital Foundry interview with Raspberry Pi Executive Director Eben Upton reported on by Eurogamer, Upton made several claims about the Raspberry Pi’s graphics capabilities. He explained that the Broadcom BCM2835’s VideoCore IV GPU is a tile mode architecture that has been configured with an emphasis on shader performance. Upton said “it does very well on compute-intensive benchmarks, and should double iPhone 4S performance across a range of content."

The comparison to the iPhone 4S relates to his further claims that the Raspberry Pi GPU is the best on the market and can best both the iPhone 4S’s PowerVR (Imagination Technologies) based graphics and even the mighty Tegra 2 in fill rate performance. Rather large claims for sure; however, we do have some independent indication that his claims may not be wholly inflated. The coders behind XBMC, open source media center software that allows users to play a variety of media formats, have demonstrated their XBMC software running on the Raspberry Pi. They showed the Raspberry Pi playing a 1080p blu ray movie at a smooth frame rate thanks to the Broadcom GPU being capable of 1080p 30 FPS H.264 hardware accelerated decoding. You can see the Raspberry Pi in action in the video below.

The little Raspberry Pi is starting to look quite promising for HTPC (and even light gaming) use, especially for the price! At $25 and $35 respectively, the Raspberry Pi should see quite the following in the modding, enthusiast, and education community.

Some new information, including some clarification of information posted on some sites:

You will be able to buy a Raspberry Pi from the end of February, from this website. The “consumer release” that Eurogamer is talking about is actually the educational release, which, as you’ll be aware if you’ve been hanging out on our forums, will come with a kid-targetted software stack, a heap of written support materials, and a standard case.

The model A will cost $25 and the model B will cost $35. These prices will not change (unless we can change them downwards). Price is such an important part of what we’re doing in trying to change the way people use computers that we’d be totally, totally mad to move the price point. The educational release’s case will not add to the price if we can possibly help it.

Thinking about it, we are only a few years away from the power of the desktop PC in a hand held cell phone like current smartphones. Once they get a gig of memory on the Rasberry PI they get close to the target hardware point where it will be possible.

Well, the only reason that doohickey has 512 RAM would be to keep the costs down. It could just as easily have provisions for a gig or more. (On ARM you don't usually run big fat assed systems like Windows, or fat assed Linux desktops either for that matter)

Windows 8 for ARM is going to be retarded I'm sure. (in addition to the morally reprehensible way they will market and push the walled garden "app store" mindset and the BIOS lockout of non approved operating systems)

What's going to be REALLY funny with Windows on ARM is the fireworks that will ensue when people realize that they can't run regular Windows apps on it. (Different processor architecture... would need to be ported and compiled for ARM ). I'm sure MS won't be the ones to point that out at the time of sale. They'll probably forbid the manufacturer of the devices from prominently displaying that info too. Note that this isn't just about "smart phone" or tablet gadgets... there will be netbook and mini desktop-like computing appliances sold like this as alternatives to the PC.

Did you manage to snag a Raspberry Pi this morning? From how hard the servers were getting hit last night, I'm starting to think that the Raspberry Pi Linux computer may be more popular than actual pie! If you are still interested in pre-ordering a Raspberry Pi, RS Components and Premier Farnell have you covered.

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